NIÑOS PAZ-IFICOS

Children and young people from the town of Nuquí in the remote Chocó rainforest were invited to participate in creative workshops that also examined human rights in the context of this small, remote community.  With local leaders and instructors from other parts of Colombia they explored the meaning of cultural identity through dance, music, chants and other arts practices.  One of the project's objectives was to enable local leaders to revive and build on traditional arts practices.  Musical instruments were bought and the inter-generational project made a considerable impact on those attending, with over 150 youngsters participating each day in the after-school activities over a 6-week period.

An idea for a video based on the life of one of the group emerged and they worked on it with enthusiasm.  The main character is played by sixteen year-old Ayda Cardenas. With terrifying prophecy she has since been murdered. It is part-documentary, part-fiction based on real-life stories from this region including Ayda's. Her story is a vision of displacement and includes the thoughts and feelings of other young people from her village.

The film begins with several men marching into a silent town. 'Fear? I feel fear of suddenly being expelled from the place I live...' says an unconfident voice, an extract from an interview with Ayda. The shadow of a world globe appears and a hand spins it like a roulette wheel, a game of chance and fate. Where will this girl be forced to go next? Where will violence and turmoil hit? As a recurrent image, the globe places the story in no specific geographical location. Displacement’s impacts are local and global.

Ayda's body is then found washed up on a beach. Her spirit threatens the town's adults but not the children who are the only ones who can see her while her wooden house is carried around the town. Nobody wants the house, which reverberates with a metaphorical and poetic sadness and the rejection displaced people experience in their search for security.

A procession through the town turns into colourful dances, chants of liberation and the representation of war as human madness. This 'parade' acts as a vertebrae through which real interviews with displaced people and images of nature are combined to reveal more about this human tragedy.

ORISA mirrors the story of millions of people in a melancholic, dramatic and beautiful way and shows not only the feeling of abandoning loved ones and the land, but also the shock and stigma of being displaced.

Supported by the Prince Claus Foundation.